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Serer is one of the Senegambian languages, which are characterized by consonant mutation. The traditional classification of Atlantic is that of Sapir (1971), which found that Serer was closest to Fulani.[4] However, a widely cited misreading of the data by Wilson (1989) inadvertently exchanged Serer for Wolof. Segerer (2009, 2010) confirms Sapir's findings on this point; Serer and Fulani are closely related (they share noun-class suffixes not found elsewhere in Atlantic), while Wolof is relatively distant from either.[5]

Not all Serer people speak Serer. About 200,000 speak Cangin languages. Because the speakers are ethnically Serer, these are commonly thought to be Serer dialects. However, they are not closely related: Serer is significantly closer to Fulani than it is to Cangin.[5]